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Surge Pricing Holding Up (Semi) Annual Increase ...
- Thread starter WDW1974
- Start date
71jason
Well-Known Member
The one where she gleefully tweeted she had Jim Hill's "expert" opinion on how locals would go to the new Disney Springs? The same Jim Hill I believe you've dubbed "the hermit from New Hampshire"? Is New Hampshire remotely close to Orlando? In which she side-stepped the fact that all the new restaurants in DS have price points far above what 98% of central Florida families can afford?
Sorry. Interesting tip on surge pricing tho.
GrammieBee
Well-Known Member
I hate to admit it, but for once I have to.agree with you guys. We had already cancelled our three week Spring trip to WDW and were taking a wait and see position about what was going on with Disney management, price increases, cuts and the whole China thing. .If we are still above ground and since we do enjoy WDW, we will, almost certainly, return when Pandora is finished. .In the mean time, our travel funds are going elsewhere.
NearTheEars
Well-Known Member
Anything new on the plan for APs? We'll likely be be downgrading to what's essentially the seasonal level when renewal comes up in August. Not a big fan of them adding blackout dates to our equivalent level under the new system.
the.dreamfinder
Well-Known Member
The Jim Hill who ran a little con scheme where he would find trashed receipts and convince CMs to give him refunds. Who, correct me if I'm wrong, physically assaulted hard working cast members once they caught onto his tricks? Behavior which should have resulted in a lifetime ban from property who figured out a way to weasel out of punishment by Disney and is now one of their most prominent credentialed "Disney Experts". Is that the fellow you speak of?
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disneyflush
Well-Known Member
Will these raises have any effect on demand or attendance? Genuinely curious to hear opinions.
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the.dreamfinder
Well-Known Member
I suspect the effect of these price increases will depend on what happens over the coming year with oil prices and the economy. If things stay, relatively, the same these changes may only have minor effects, on the balance sheet. However, the goodwill people have for Disney...
hopemax
Well-Known Member
I have been wondering what Disney would do, once Universal Hollywood instituted their version of "surge" pricing. The one that said, "our current gate price, is still our gate price, but we will make some days CHEAPER." That was the opposite of what it appeared Disney's plans were, to make their current gate price the "low" price that would become more EXPENSIVE on some days." I was wondering if Disney would be so bold as to keep to their plan, or if they'd back off, delay, reevaluate how high they wanted to go.
We've never seen "theme park admission wars." But it happens in other businesses (airfare, etc) on a regular basis. So why not? I would guess SeaWorld would actually love to drop their price, and they recently said they wouldn't participate in this matching. I suppose it would be a matter of whether parks feel like they have capacity to absorb the influx of guests who might be attracted to lower prices, and how vulnerable they feel the competition is. Could they really make substantial inroads in market share (good business), or are they simply giving their existing customers a bargain (bad business).
asianway
Well-Known Member
It's not 1982, the Sentinel doesn't need to shelter Disney anymore
WildcatDen
Well-Known Member
I believe @the.dreamfinder lists 2018 somewhere above so there it is. Get your visits in between now and either January 1, 2018 or December 31, 2018 because Walt Disney World will be gone at that point. Buried under a house of cards from what I read. Of course, exploder did say a while back it would be broken off and sold so maybe that is part of the same 2018 end game?
hopemax
Well-Known Member
I've said this before, but I believe this recent attendance wave has more to do with what WDW was doing when today's parents were children (the big building boom starting from the mid-80s thru the 25th Anniversary), than what WDW has been doing recently. Mom and/or Dad have been waiting 25 years for the day they can return (or visit because their parents always said no) to WDW with their children so they can do all the things that their parents told them "no," and they are going to ban that word from their vocabulary while they are there. That kind of motivation is incredibly difficult to break through and cause people to re-evaluate their vacation decisions. It also makes it easy to jack up the prices without fear of it affecting anything (to a point).
The "Disney is a business" crowd points out regularly, that expecting WDW to be run like it was 25-30 years ago is naive and not in tune with current business realities. So the potential problem is all these parents are walking in with expectations that can't possibly be met. And why things like people waiting most of their life to stay at a monorail resort, only to arrive and find the monorail unavailable for several hours a day can be a big deal. Or planning on doing silly things like doing rope drop and riding Space Mountain 3 times in a row first thing, and being met with FP+ which pretty much limits rides to once or twice per day. What we don't know yet, is what they are telling their friends about their recent WDW vacation and how it's impacting the next wave. I don't even really expect most people to trash it, because that would mean admitting they made some sort of mistake. I sort of expect people to just be silent about it, with the most damaging statements being that they didn't have plans to return.
A 10 year old in 1986 will be 40 years old in 2016. Good chance, they have a 10 year old, and some younger children and have recently visited or will be recently visiting. A 10 year old in 1996 (start of 25th anniversary) will be 30, and is likely just starting their family and might expect to start visiting in 5-10 years. I would expect WDW to continue to see strong attendance during this period, regardless of any decisions Disney makes. If WDW hits any bumps in the road, they have to be the size of boulders in regards to perception of a WDW vacation because it would take a boulder to overcome the inertia WDW currently has in their favor. Where I think the problem will show up is return bookings within this group. WDW was pretty shocked by how many people "returned" for the 25th anniversary and MK attendance surged to 17 million people in 1997 (maybe today's parents final trip as a child?) and that once we move beyond this group, it will never be like this again. My concern is that WDW will have put itself in a Wile E. Coyote situation...so concentrated on that Roadrunner, that they don't realize that they ran off the cliff years ago, but this demographic so willing to do anything, driven by memories of a WDW that no longer exists, shielded them.
sshindel
The Epcot Manifesto
So, I need to be ready with the capital by 2018. If they are breaking it apart, I want to buy the Tiki Room. I wonder what it'll cost to transport it to Illinois.
sshindel
The Epcot Manifesto
If you think they do these cuts without running them through a series of models that will predict the outcome on their bottom line, and make the cuts with knowledge and a relative confidence that the outcome of the cuts will impact $ at an acceptable level, then @ford91exploder has a bridge that I'd like to sell you.
CJR
Well-Known Member
This is just my two cents here, but Disney will be having problems at WDW soon and it won't have as much to do with price as it will in terms of investment. When people come back from their Disney vacations, they aren't saying all great things about their trips. From the "it's way too crowded", "not enough to do", to the classic "it's too expensive", it's all building up collectively.
The previous Disney Research teams will go nuts when they find out that not everyone thinks the parks are a great value and had the best vacation ever.
The parks are expensive, they've been expensive. $3 to a one day ticket wouldn't be what keeps people away. The not-so-great experience will. Of course, it's not really a $3 increase if your comparing it to 1999, but the real issue at Disney is the "going out of business" mentality stacked on top of record prices.
At this point, the record attendance collapse is a "when" instead of "if". There's just much better vacation options out there now, especially for the money. Again, all my opinion.
The previous Disney Research teams will go nuts when they find out that not everyone thinks the parks are a great value and had the best vacation ever.
The parks are expensive, they've been expensive. $3 to a one day ticket wouldn't be what keeps people away. The not-so-great experience will. Of course, it's not really a $3 increase if your comparing it to 1999, but the real issue at Disney is the "going out of business" mentality stacked on top of record prices.
At this point, the record attendance collapse is a "when" instead of "if". There's just much better vacation options out there now, especially for the money. Again, all my opinion.
ford91exploder
Resident Curmudgeon
Yes Disney does undoubtedly have a sophisticated business modeling system. But if the data being fed to it is flawed well the results will be as well
We've all seen the recent surveys where you cannot give negative feedback on Disney experiences and the ones which kick you out if you answer a question incorrectly
Decisions based on this data are likely to be highly flawed because the data used as the basis for analysis is what the executives want to hear rather than being based on ground truth about the actual guest experience.
This, this, so much this. My parents took me when I was a kid the year that Animal Kingdom opened, as well as for the 25th anniversary, back when Disney actually cared about their parks/guests. I always expected to take my kids to Disney World when they were of age. Two years ago, my Mother and I happened to go to Disney World (she had free air tickets to Orlando) and I had such a negative experience I vowed to never take my kids there. All the magic was lost, instead Disney World now is just some exhausting exercise in obsessive planning to ride the 2/3 interesting rides in each park. I felt as though I paid $1000's just to be let loose in a giant overcrowded gift shop.
I understand Disney's nostalgia/generational pull is HUGE, but if they don't fix things fast, I can see them losing an entire generation of American vacationers whom realize the magical Disney World they visited in their youth not only doesn't exist anymore, but is now worse for waaaay more money. Combine that with theme parks around the US (not just Universal Studios, which is the way better park at this point) upping their game year after year, I can see generations of Americans skipping Disney World. I know at least for myself and from the people I've talked to, they won't even consider Disney World until Avatar Land/Toy Story Land/Star Wars land are all completed. And even then, if their ticket prices rise substantially more in the interim, none of us would be able to afford it anyways.
BernardandBianca
Well-Known Member
I have to mention that the last Disney survey I took (I'm not in their preferred demographic so I don't get asked surveys very much), the one sent to AP holders about their re-upping the pass, asked a lot of appropriate questions, and included answers that I had never seen in a Disney survey, such as "It costs too much". I was really surprised at the possible answers, and based on how I did answer them, will probably never see any such possible answers in the future.
ford91exploder
Resident Curmudgeon
Interesting that negative feedback was allowed on that survey, I've been deleting Disney surveys for about a year now since I got a couple of no negativity allowed surveys
COProgressFan
Well-Known Member
I believe the Spirit mentioned this as well. I'm no longer an AP holder (due to cost) and from what I'm hearing, I was also shocked that it sounds like they were actually asking legitimate questions to AP holders. Answers like "It costs too much" "there's nothing new to do" and "Disney is greedy" sound like things they would never include in a survey before. At least it shows somebody somewhere gets that there is a problem, and is looking for honest/accurate feedback. Whether the powers that be actually care about the responses is another story however.
hopemax
Well-Known Member
As you might guess from my other posts, I think the self-destruction will be later than what people would hope. The "kids, now parents" from WDW's Golden Age will keep things afloat in the short term for attendance and profits. It will take another 10 years for that wave to end. But what is show hard to show, especially given our limited data resources is what the attendance data curve should have looked like, if they had continued to operate as they had prior to the 25th anniversary vs the actual attendance data curve. Even 2% increases are under-performance when the expectation should have been 6%. And how do you have a chance to convince people that a company making billions, could be even making more billions by retaining an even higher percentage of previous visitors?
Disney used their data to suggest that theme parks were a mature market within the US, from 1998ish-DL's 50th and everyone believed it until the revitalization of Disneyland, and more recently Universal's growth to show that with investment in quality experiences, there was still growth to be had. The 10 year window, is of much interest to me, because I expect something in regards to Universal's third park to be far into development (if not recently opened) and for WDW's weaknesses to approach maximum. Not only will the Golden Age Kid to Parent wave be over, Star Wars Land should be 5 years old, and most of the bump from that will have passed. Avatar and TS Land will also be in the past, and after a decade of massive capital improvements I doubt management and shareholders will be eager to see that continue. Also, on the CM/Management side, there are still pockets of good people trying their best, and 10 years from now, I think that group will be retired. Most of the "backstops" will be gone. The remaining one being whatever remains from "old Disney" attractions like HM or Pirates, architecture on Main Street and other places, the characters, etc. If people keep saying "what they love about WDW is stuff instituted by old regimes" that is not a good indicator going forward.
The indicators are probably not going to be overall attendance and profits, but Brand perception, length of stay and other things we probably won't be able to track. Is Disney still Disney (with all the positive nostalgia that comes from saying that word). Or are they Sears or any other business that once dominated their market but now viewed as a lesser Brand in their category. WDW doesn't have to go out of business, or even fall behind Six Flags to have self-destructed. They just have to be the Brand that people snicker or jeer about and not revere.